A World of Hurt: Perception
by Alipeeps
Summary: Part of a series of Shep whumpy tag fics to Season 3 eps. Progeny tag. SPOILERS FOR PROGENY! “My head is killing me.”.... NOW COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

_Part of the "A World of Hurt" series – an ongoing, only slightly AU series of whumpy tag fics to the each of the Season 3 episodes. By hook or by crook I will work some Shep whump into every episode.. if TPTB won't do it, then I'll just have to do it myself :) These stories are designed to fit in with the canon of Season 3 – imagine, if you will, that they take place "off-screen" before, during or after the episode, as appropriate._

_Fifth fic in the series, this is the tag for Progeny. This will deal with both the physical whumping of Shep (cos it sure looked like that mindprobe hurt!) and also the interesting emotional repercussions of his visions of the death of Atlantis… should be two chapters in total._

_Please read and review._

_**SPOILERS FOR PROGENY!

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"My head is killing me."

Lost in his own thoughts, Sheppard was only vaguely aware of Elizabeth's softly-spoken complaint.

She had it right though. Killing was definitely the appropriate description. His head felt like it was about 3 sizes too small for his brain, like a tight band was squeezed around his skull, building an increasing pressure behind his eyes and making his entire head pound and throb relentlessly. It made his eyes hurt and his teeth ache.

He sat slumped in a corner of the cell, his legs drawn up in front of him, arms resting on his knees, trying his best to not move his head any more than was necessary. He was still reeling from whatever Oberoth had done to him. From the revelation that he – that _they_, all of them – were not Ancients, not even men, but machines. Replicators. He knew the name from the SGC reports… but reading the cold, impartial reports of what these complex machines could do was no comparison to experiencing… What the hell _had_ he experienced? What _had_ Oberoth done to him?

The last thing he remembered was standing alone in the control room as Atlantis shuddered and shrieked around him, wailing and groaning in her death throes. He'd hit the button, closed his eyes and waited to die along with the city.

The death of Atlantis hadn't been what he was expecting. There'd been a sharp, excruciating pain, like a knife between the eyes, and a dizzying sensation of falling, and he'd opened his eyes to find himself back in the cell, sprawled on the floor with Oberoth standing over him, a roaring pain in his head and feeling so groggy and disoriented that he could barely string a sentence together.

He _still_ felt disoriented. The Asurans had simply walked away without a word, leaving the Lantean team lying dazed and shaken on the cell floor. With a shaky groan, he'd picked himself up off the floor, wobbling and uncoordinated, his body protesting the movement with trembling limbs and bursts of pain like miniature fireworks behind his eyeballs. The others had been equally shaky and he'd pushed his own pain aside, helping Elizabeth to her feet, lending a hand as Rodney groaned and swayed unsteadily. He'd still been struggling to process what had happened, trying desperately to get his bearings, operating on autopilot as he gritted his teeth against the pounding in his head and made sure that his team, his friends, were okay.

Dazed and hurting as they all were, there hadn't been much in the way of conversation, just vague assurances that they were all ok and tremulous smiles that were meant to reassure but that didn't quite ring true. Sheppard felt anything but ok.

What the hell had happened to him?

"How'd we get back here?"

There was a long moment of silence in the cell and, without wanting to move his head enough to look around, Sheppard knew that everyone had turned to look at him.

"What do you mean, "back here"?" Teyla sounded exhausted and… something else. Something he wasn't sure he wanted to think too closely about.

"Well, we broke out, got to the jumper, gated back to Atlantis…"

His words faltered. The awkward silence was more than answer enough to his question. He grimaced. "At least... I thought we did."

"That is _not_ what I remember…" The tremor to Teyla's voice made something dark and ugly rear its head in Sheppard's soul, something that, right at that moment, wanted very much to have five minutes alone with Oberoth.. and a sharp implement. He decided right there and then that he probably never wanted to know exactly what it was that Teyla remembered.

"The only thing I remember was being in a dark room, fighting hand to hand for hours.." Ronon was slouched in another corner, the runner's long legs stretched out before him, his arms wrapped around his midriff.

"Well, they obviously created different scenarios for each of us during the mindprobe. No doubt looking to gather information from our responses." McKay was restless, agitated, wandering endlessly about the cell. Just watching him stalk back and forth was making Sheppard dizzy. Mindprobe. So… none of it was real. Was it? How could he tell? When did his real memories end and the mindprobe scenario begin? They were back in the cell. No. _Still_ in the cell. So.. they'd never escaped?

"I thought our escape seemed too easy."

McKay harrumphed dismissively, "Huh. At least you escaped."

Sheppard tilted his head up and that, ignoring the twinge of pain that reminded him just how bad an idea that was. He knew Rodney pretty well by now; well enough to pick up on the taste of bitterness in the scientist's voice.

"What'd they do to you?" Honestly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know but concern tightened his chest and the question slipped out before he had time to think about it.

McKay's restless motion stopped for a moment and his chin lifted almost defiantly. "Torture. In ways too hideous and.. intimate to recount."

"Like what?" Ronon's question distracted Sheppard from the ugly undertone to Rodney's voice and the scientist's face twisted into familiar impatience before Sheppard could get a fix on the emotions he'd seen flit across Rodney's mobile features.

"I said too hideous to recount!" With one snappish response, the familiar, condescending personality was firmly back in place and the brief moment of vulnerability was gone.

Sheppard suddenly felt incredibly tired, his head drooping forward as he stared unseeingly at the floor by his feet.

"I just had a horrible thought."

Sheppard suspected they had all been thinking the same thing, having the same doubts. It was Teyla who gave words to their shared concern

"What if it is still happening?"

"Yes." Weir's voice was hollow, shaken. Sheppard couldn't get rid of the image of her looking back at him as she stumbled through the gate, leaving Atlantis for the last time. Not real, he reminded himself. It wasn't real.

"There's gotta be a way to know for sure."

Lost in his thoughts, seeing not the plain, bare floor of the cell but the blinding flare of explosions and sparking conduits, the racing numbers of the self-destruct countdown, Sheppard wasn't really aware of McKay walking up alongside him until the scientist poked a finger at the side of his head and pushed, hard. The motion snapped John's head to the side and sent a flare of pain ricocheting about his skull. He shot McKay with a look that was a mixture of irritation and disbelief and responded instinctively, smacking his hand against McKay's leg in childish retaliation.

He caught Elizabeth giving them a slightly incredulous look as though she were trying to decide which of them were the bigger idiot. Dammit. His head really hurt.

"Doesn't really prove anything.." He drew his legs in closer as McKay wandered away in vague dissatisfaction, huddling himself further into the corner, his thoughts sliding unwillingly back to those memories – _false_ memories, he tried to remind himself – of seeing Atlantis fall all around him.

And then a voice intruded on his thoughts, snapping his head up and making him clamber awkwardly to his feet.

Niam.

"It's real, Dr McKay."

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_TBC…_


	2. Chapter 2

_Conclusion of my Progeny tag fic... and leading us nicely into The Real World._

_Please read and review - all thoughts/comments gratefully received.

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John awoke with a start, jerking his head up from the pillow with his heart pounding in his chest, his breathing harsh and ragged in the still twilight of his quarters. It took a moment for him to orient himself, to realise that it just a dream; he was in bed, in his quarters, and it was just a dream, just a memory. Not even a real memory. He shuddered, his pulse still racing, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath, and let his head fall back against the pillow, trying consciously to release the tension from his muscles, to force his body to relax.

It's not real, he told himself. It was never real. But dammit, it had sure felt real. In his dream it had felt real… in the hallucination forced upon him by the Asuran mindprobe it had felt so goddamn real. Didn't matter how many times he told himself it had never really happened, he _remembered_ standing in the control room and keying in the self-destruct; the captain going down with the doomed ship. He remembered the harsh tang of smoke and electricity in the air, the thunder of noise as energy blasts rained down upon the defenceless city, the sharp fizz and crackle and blinding flare of conduits exploding around him. He remembered closing his eyes and waiting to die; he remembered flinching, even with his eyes closed, as something exploded nearby, the brightness of it flaring redly through his eyelids. He remembered all of it with perfect clarity.

And none of it was real.

He sighed heavily, pushing the memories away, trying to ground himself in the reality of here and now, of the feel of the firm mattress beneath him, the faint sounds of the ocean outside, the comfortable, familiar surroundings of his quarters. He focused on physical sensation, the feeling of the sheets twisted and tangled around his waist, the cool night air drying the sheen of sweat on his brow, forcing himself to breathe slow and deep as he lay still, limp and exhausted, gazing unseeingly at the ceiling as his heart rate gradually slowed.

It was gloomy in his quarters but not quite dark. Must be nearly dawn, he realised distantly. His breathing had slowed now, his chest still shuddering with a little with each rasping breath of air and the subsequent slow, deliberate exhalation. His heart rate was calming and he shivered suddenly; now that the adrenalin rush was over he was aware of the sweat soaking his t-shirt, cooling quickly in the pre-dawn air, raising goosebumps across his skin. With a groan he pushed himself into motion, rolling lethargically onto his side and reaching out an arm to fumble on the bedside table for his wristwatch, slumping back over onto his back as he regarded the watchface with bleary eyes. 4:47am. Marvellous. He sighed again, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. Might as well get up.

He kicked at the tangled sheets until they reluctantly released their grip on him and slowly levered himself upright, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress. The floor was cool beneath his bare feet and he took a moment to just sit, elbows resting on his knees and his head hanging down, just letting himself breathe and feeling his body awaken sluggishly. He felt… tired. Not remotely rested. It had taken him a long time to fall asleep, his mind working overtime, dwelling on things, unable to switch off, and when he finally had drifted into slumber it was been a restless, shallow sleep, fraught with uneasy dreams and fragments of painful memories. He felt like he'd gotten no more than maybe an hour of so in total of proper, deep sleep before his nightmare had wrenched him rudely back to wakefulness. He rolled his head slowly from side to side, feeling stiff and lethargic. John was by nature a morning person and he usually awoke feeling refreshed and energised, would often start his day with a run before breakfast. Right now he felt like doing nothing more than rolling back up in the still-warm bedsheets and going right back to sleep. Except he knew from experience that there was little chance of that – and spending the next couple of hours staring at the ceiling was a less than appealing thought.. and wasn't going to do anything to make him feel any more rested or awake.

He pushed his hands against his knees to rise slowly, wearily, to his feet and padded woozily through the gloom of his quarters into the bathroom. The lights came on automatically as the adjoining door slid open and the glare stung his eyes, making him squint as he dialled down the intensity with a thought. With a second thought, the sound of running water filled the small room and John groggily peeled the sweat-damp t-shirt from his skin, raising his arms to pull it over his head and drop it to the floor. His shorts followed and he stepped gratefully into the spray of warm water, ducking his head under the showerhead, closing his eyes as water ran down his face, dripping from his eyelashes, streaming down the long line of his throat.

The warm water felt wonderful, sluicing the drying sweat from his body, soothing the chill from his skin. He turned slowly under the spray, letting the pressurised stream of water pound into his tired muscles, pummelling away the last vestiges of tension from his nightmare.

He stayed in the shower for a long time, leaning against the cool, smooth wall of the cubicle, his eyes closed, his unruly hair flattened wetly to his scalp, his thoughts sombre. No matter that it wasn't real, he had experienced his worst nightmare at the Asurans' hands; he had seen, had lived through, the destruction of Atlantis. He'd seen his friends run through the gate with barely a backward glance, seen the city falling apart around him. For the second time in just a few short years he'd chosen, without a moment's hesitation, to sacrifice himself to save them; to save Earth. He had faced his death, accepted it and, as best he could, prepared for it. It had been real.. had felt real. Just as real as when he flew the jumper on a suicide run into the gaping maw of a hive ship, being snatched from death at the last instant by the Deadalus.

He wondered bitterly what the Asurans had made of what they'd seen in their little created scenario, what they thought they knew of him from their rape of his mind. He wondered whether a machine could ever really understand the complex conversion of nature, training and experience that could make a man choose to sacrifice his life in order to protect others.

His mood was dark as he shut the shower off, the reflection in the mirror pinched and hollow-eyed as he shaved.

The city was still slumbering as he left his quarters, the first light of a new day breaking over the ocean, warm sunlight filtering in through the city's windows, casting patterns across the walls as he walked, filling the city of the Ancients with golden light. It was early, too early for people to be awake, to early for the mess hall to start serving breakfast. John didn't have a destination in mind, didn't have anywhere he needed to be, just a restless desire to move, to escape the confines of his quarters where memories of bad dreams still lingered in the air.

Somehow, he was not too surprised when his seemingly random trajectory brought him to the control room.

It looked the same as it ever did. Familiar. Comforting. And yet… and yet he couldn't shake the images that flashed across his memory; the blinding flare of exploding consoles and circuitry, pieces of the structure crumbling and falling as people scrambled for cover. He stood on the small balcony, his fingers clenching in a white-knuckled grip on the railings, and looked out over the gate room. In his mind's eye expedition members, some injured and bleeding, some carrying hastily grabbed equipment, supporting friends, ran and staggered through the gate. Ronon and Teyla disappeared without a backward glance, preoccupied with helping the injured, Elizabeth gazed about her in despair and his grip tightened unconsciously on the railing as he remembered ordering her to leave, seeing her disappear into the shimmering event horizon.

He remembered Rodney's desperation, Elizabeth's futile hope that maybe there was another way, that maybe he didn't have to die. He remembered the awful knowledge that this was it, the end of everything; they'd failed. He remembered the sense of unnatural calm that had filled him, tinged with a taste of fear, mixed with the sharp pain of regret, as he had pressed the button and closed his eyes… waiting for the end, waiting for a moment of fiery pain, of disintegration.. and then nothingness.

"John?"

He flinched, snapping out of a daze to find Elizabeth beside him, her gaze questioning, concern creasing her brow.

"Hey." He forced himself to smile, to ease the worry he saw in her eyes.

Her expression was considering, uncertain. "Are you okay?"

He nodded quickly. "I'm good." His gaze strayed unwillingly back out over the gateroom and he wondered briefly how long it would be before he would be able to stand here and not see death and destruction. With a conscious effort he pushed aside the memories that had never really happened and turned his back on the gateroom, flexing the ache from his fingers as he leaned casually against the railings.

"How about you?" He saw a reflection of his own shadows in her expressive eyes, his smile twisting as she raised a hand unconsciously to her neck, rubbing softly at the memory of pain.

She smiled wryly, knowingly, as she echoed his own words back at him, "I'm good."

He grinned then and saw an answering curve to her lips, a genuine smile that warmed her eyes, chasing the shadows away.

He pushed off from the railing, suddenly feeling restless again, and spoke over his shoulder as he wandered randomly into the control room, "So what are you doing up this early?"

She didn't answer and he glanced back to see her frozen in place on the balcony, a hand still at her throat, her eyes distant, a bemused frown on her face. A sudden, nameless fear thrilled along his spine and he turned back, tilting his head to catch her gaze.

"Elizabeth?"

Her movements were jerky, disconnected, as she turned her head to look at him.

"Hey. You okay?"

"John?" Her voice was faint, distant and there was a lost, hollow look to her eyes that clenched a hard fist around his heart. "I feel…"

"Elizabeth?" He reached out a hand towards her and, in that instant, time seemed to stop. He felt as though he were frozen in place as he watched her eyes suddenly roll back, her features slackening as she simply – terrifyingly suddenly – collapsed. He was unaware of moving, of catching her before she hit the floor. There was a roaring in his ears, white noise and confusion, and then time sped up and moved forward again and he was crouched on the floor of the control room, Elizabeth deathly still and limp in his arms, shouting even though the earpiece radio was sensitive enough to pick up a whisper.

"Medical team to the gateroom, now!"

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_Fin…_


End file.
